


That feeling everyone calls obsession, but we both know is love

by Baryshnikov



Series: Where Monsters lie [15]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Insanity, M/M, Obsessive Tom Riddle, POV Second Person, Possessive Tom Riddle, Stream of Consciousness, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2019-11-26 15:17:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18182264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: You’ll be the cat and he’ll be the mouse, and this will be so much fun.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> From Tom's perspective

This is such a fun game. It reminds you of when you were young, of watching little animals face their natural predators. Watching that large tabby cat, stalk a small bird with a broken wing, watching it creep ever so quiet before ambushing it, just one clench of its jaw and that little baby bird was dead, and your heart was beating in a way you’ve been looking to imitate forever more. You see yourself in that cat, slinking through his thoughts, just waiting for him to let you in, because he has to eventually. Harry is not a little bird though, he’s more of a mouse, scuttling through the world, not able to fly away from his fate, but still ever so vulnerable to his natural predators. As much as you are envious of the cat, of its simple way of killing that was so gorgeous, you want to be slower. To have him know that his death is coming, to keep him alive just to play with him, just to see the fear and the hope in his eyes. Oh, how you want it. Want it more than anything in the world, to see him scared, to see him the moment before you clench your jaws. To see him just before he dies in your arms. But for now, he watches you with suspicion. 

You’ll be the cat and he’ll be the mouse. 

This is such a fun game. Even if you’ve been waiting for so long, just waiting and waiting and waiting for it to properly start. Everything in your life seems so boring these days because he is not yet a part of your life. If he were here, you could entertain yourself for hours. You could sit across from him, slowly peel him apart without ever even touching him. Strip him of all that he is, all that he professes to be, just cut him right back to the bone, expose the raw nerves and let him bleed out. Oh, how you can almost hear his sweet little groans, those eyes spread so wide as they beg you to let him live. You know you’d want to kill him, but you also know you couldn’t, not when you could _play_ with him. You know that him being so vulnerable would be far too tempting a possibility to pass up. So instead you will save him. But not only that, you will build him back up just as you stripped him down, build him and build him, each time getting that much closer to making him in your own image. Make him into something perfect, something just like you. He will be your experiment, your demonstration, just your opportunity to show to everyone what you can do, even to the things they think are simply untouchable. That you can taint the _boy who lived_ just as much as he has tainted you. But for now, you stand, and you wait for this game to really begin. 

You’ll be the cat and he’ll be the mouse. 

This is such a fun game. Just seeing him sitting on his bed tearing himself apart, does he love you or does he loathe you? Does he like you being here when he is alone, or would he rather never see you again? You hope he likes you because you like him. He is everything that you want, a companion, a friend, a person who understands the very depths of your soul. None of your ‘friends’ did. But _he_ does. You can see it in his eyes. He would love to get to know you, he’d hate it too. That is the best combination that you can think of, him caught in a pleasure-pain, a love-hate, where he despises every inch of you but simply can’t get enough. A world where he wants more and more of you because you are his drug and he is an addict. You can’t wait to see how far he’ll go to get you, to watch him sink his teeth into you, to see the red between the white and the horror in his eyes as he realises what he’s becoming. Just the thought of it causes shivers down your spine, a spreading warmth in your stomach, all at the imagined feeling of his teeth buried deep into your shoulder. You’d let him bite harder, eat you if he wanted, as long as it let out that darker side of him. The one that you know lurks just underneath the surface of his skin. The one he likes to pretend isn’t real, because he is respectable, because he is normal. Though he’s not. He’s really not. But for now, he ignores you. 

You’ll be the cat and he’ll be the mouse. 

This is such a fun game. You watching him, him watching you. Always across the room, for he never lets you be alone with him, never lets you stand too close. He’s scared. You can see it in his eyes, he’s scared that he’ll like it, that you’ll show him something he can’t resist. You don’t mind. You’re quite happy to play the long game if that’s what he wants. You’re quite happy to lurk in the shadows and wait. To slowly edge closer and closer to him until its too late for him to get away. If he wants to turn this into _that_ sort of game, then you’re happy to oblige. You just love games. Love the idea of watching and waiting and watching and waiting and slowly, ever so slowly, creeping into his life, spilling all over his world until he simply can’t deny you. You want him looking over his shoulder, down every corridor, scared for his life but unable to tell anyone why. To have his heart pounding at the very thought of you, at _every_ thought of you. You swallow and smile. He doesn’t smile back. Oh, how you can’t wait for the day that he does. For the day that he smiles back with his mouth, but his eyes stay sullen for he knows he has fallen in love; because he will fall in love, everyone does with you, sooner or later. That’s just what happens, there is something so completely – irresistible about you, not that you’re complaining. Not if it will help you win this game, and it _will_ help you win. But for now, you just have to come out of the shadows and hope he sees you. 

You’ll be the cat and he’ll be the mouse. 

This is such a fun game. He plays along so perfectly even though doesn’t even know what you’re going to do to him when you catch him. He couldn’t possibly comprehend all the possibilities that swarm your brain like a plague of locusts. But you’re waiting, waiting ever so patiently for when he finally relinquishes that control and you can pounce. For the moment he forgets himself and lets you in, lets you touch him, wrap your fingers around his throat and see your beautiful creation, touch him and touch him and taste him. It’ll be like having yourself to do to as you please. Perhaps that makes you a narcissist, to so badly want something that looks like you, acts like you, is like you. Malfoy always used to call you one. He liked to press your back against the yellow wallpaper and spit those words out ever so slowly: narcissist, psychopath, Machiavellian, monster. You love every single one. You loved to hear him say them, to murmur them over and over and over, as he pressed you against the white sheets dyed red by the sun. You hope that Harry can learn to say them too, that he too can learn to love those words. But that is for the future when he has admitted that he’s lost in love; but for now, he half-watches you, while pretending he sees nothing. 

You’ll be the cat and he’ll be the mouse. 

This is such a fun game. Though you don’t like when other people get too close to him, when other people threaten to join your entertainment because that is not the idea. He is yours and yours alone. This life was made only for the two of you, to dance around each other, to move in that striking circle of death, to perform a duet where you are the predator and he is the prey. Both your lives are destined to end with you holding each other as the world burns hot on your backs. You wish that he would understand the things you’d do for him. The people you’d tear apart if they hurt him, you’d burn worlds for him if he asked, and you so badly want him to ask. You want, no, need, to show him the things that you’d do for him, because even if he’s your prey, he’s still special. You love him in a way, and other people would call it twisted. Call it warped and disturbed. They’d call you crazy for daring to utter that word, they say that love’s a weakness, a limitation, a vulnerability. But it all depends on who you’re giving your heart to. Harry’s not a weakness, he’s an opportunity, and if gives up his heart with as much willingness as you do your own, his opportunities will be endless. But for now, you just edge closer, smiling when he doesn’t move away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this happened, I hope it's not too bad

Your game is becoming more elaborate. He pretends not to see you, and you pretend that you do not see him watching. It is a dance between the two of you, a beautiful waltz, neither of you quite touching the other, and yet, with every glance scraping your poisonous fingers closer to his soul. Recently, there is something new in his gaze, something old and feral, and finally, you have the confirmation that you have been looking for. You know now that you are starting to unlatch the hinges of whatever lurks inside his skull. Ever so slowly your smiles and your gazes are cutting into him, wearing down his willpower until it dissolves all around him. He wants you. He’s been hiding it for so long that it’s becoming unbearable. As he watches you, you can see him grip his glass just a little too tight, knuckles blotched white and red. He hates himself. Hates that he just wants you to take what you want. It’s obvious that he’s starting to get sick of this game, so sick of pretending that there is nothing when there is so much between you. It bubbles, an open secret just for the two of you, under every conversation, hanging, lingering, burning a hole in the air itself. It’s so palpable that you can almost taste it, almost feel the beating of his heart when you smile at him for half a second too long. You know you could make a move, put him out of his self-induced misery, but where would the fun in that be? You like to watch him suffer, to watch him tear himself apart. That perfect pleasure-pain that you dreamt of, finally becoming a reality. It’s just so lovely to watch someone who had always been in control, lose it so easily, and lose it to themselves of all people. Just watching his composure fall apart under your eyes makes something in your stomach curl and flicker, and you have to bite your lip and tell yourself to wait, to pause, slow down until he understands what he really wants. Until then, you will have to wait in endless gorgeous agony, waiting and anticipating. 

Because this is going to be so much fun. 

He’s starting to smile at you, and you know then that it is beginning. The wider his smile spreads the further he is sliding down that slippery slope. Soon he won’t be able to stop, though he’ll try, he’ll try so hard to crawl back up to his moral high ground. But you won’t let him go. He chose to come down and rot with you, and he will rot. Not for you, for you he’ll stay perfect, but for everyone else…. For all those who must watch him fall, he will rot before their eyes. They will try to help him, give him advice and suggestions, they’ll tell him to leave you, but he’ll love you too much by then to even hear them. You are slowly becoming his entire world, and it is the most intoxicating, empowering thing that you have ever witnessed. Just knowing that in a crowd he looks only for you is just fascinating, and you never want the feeling to stop. Though for a while, it goes no further, plateaus and your games have hit an end. He looks and he smiles with so much want, and yet, for all your hints, he does not act. You are left standing across the room, alone, frustrated and irritated with something winding itself up inside you, making you uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable though as when he smiles at other people, even if you can see that it is just a movement of his lips, it makes your insides burn, and you wonder if this is jealousy. If wanting to break people who go near him is jealousy, because that is exactly what you want to do, and you want him to watch. To once again see all that you would do for him, if only he would join you in a mutual game, one where you were not left to watch from the outside, and one where he finally gets what he wants. Really though, you want him to give in and enjoy this game as much as you do.

Because this is going to be so much fun. 

Smiles aren’t giving him the hit anymore that they used to. It’s obvious from the desperation on his face, the fear that he’s losing his connection to you, despite you never really having a connection. He’s certainly never spoken to you before, though you feel as though you’ve had a thousand conversations with him, maybe more. But you don’t _need_ words, this is not a love affair, this is a game, a silent, wordless, telepathic game. The pieces on the board moved with your bodies and your fingers, and the corners of your mouths. You do not need words to understand him, and you are sure he does not need words to understand you. Even when you eventually collide, because you will. There will be no words. It will be an implosion, him, just breaking apart and, you, doing as you please with the pieces. But it will be a silent death on his part. A vicious mutation where people look and try and see what is different about him. They’ll try so hard to see your words on his skin, to try and discover what has happened to the man that they used to know. They’ll never found out. So, no, words do not play a part in this game, and you thought that actions did not either, but he is growing bolder. He is facing his fears for his fix of you, swallowing down his pride and getting closer to you. He wants proximity, and you are almost tempted not to give to him, because frankly he doesn’t deserve it, but you do anyway. You do because you don’t want him to go elsewhere. You realise quickly that it’s the little things that get to you. Your skin prickling when he comes too close to you, his must too because you see him snatch the palm away, hold it to his chest like it was stung by a wasp. You’re not a wasp, perhaps you were once in your youth, too quick to act, never taking your time to think things through. You’ve changed since then. Now, you will still sting that who deserve it, but you are more selective. You’ll only hurt those who get in your way, the ones that seem to make it so difficult to get the things that you want. It’s not as though you want the world, only one person in it, only Harry. You are not a wasp, so he must burn as you do just to touch you. When your shoulders knock together, it’s electric, a snap of something unbearable, and you just want him to hurry up and play his next turn. You want him to throw himself into this game so that you can play with just as much vigour. That is all you want, that is all you need. 

Because this is going to be so much fun. 

There’s another new feeling about him today, it’s heavy and hot, so much so that you can practically feel it radiating through the room. Can everyone else feel it, or only you? You know you are more attuned to him than anyone else, but how could they _not_ feel something so significant, so pronounced that it colours everything in a red; a hot wet red that just screams blood, sex and bad choices. You hope he wants to indulge in all three because you certainly do. You won’t deny anymore that you want him. No longer just as a trophy either. This has become something more than trophy hunting. You said, when you began this game, that you were doing this because you wanted to show everyone what you could do to him if you so desired. You don’t want that anymore. For this is not trophy hunting. This is something far more sinister, far more insidious than mere trophies. This is an obsession. Bone deep and beautiful obsession. And you absolutely love it. You can’t help but laugh a little at yourself, the victim of your own madness. It’s worth it though. It will always be worth it. You’ll make sure it is, make sure that you’ll use every inch of him to repay your debt to your own obsession. His body and his mind are your rewards in this elaborate game. So, you follow him when he glances and moves away. You follow him wherever he goes because he is leading you somewhere. Every so often he leans over his shoulder and checks that you are still there, that you have not abandoned your place as his shadow. You are almost offended that he thinks you might. Almost. It’s nice to think that he planned this, that all of this is merely intricate theatrics that gets the two of you alone together. But you already know where you’re going, any fool would. You wonder if he thinks you don’t; if he thinks he still has time to change his mind. He doesn’t. He’s leading you to his room, and there is nothing he can do now to stop the inevitable happening. Whether he realises it or not, he has invited what will be his undoing into his room, and into his heart, and into his life. Not that your complaining about his undoing. 

Because this is going to be so much fun. 

He’s giving you himself, and it’s scrawled superficially all over his mind that he thinks this will placate you. He thinks that you’ll let him go when you’ve got what you want, like a cat that just wanted a plaything. He’s a fool. When he’s had a taste of you, he’ll never be able to stop, whether you still want him or not. All because you are so addictive, a strawberry flavoured glaze on his tongue, a sourness sugar-coated. You’re just everything he’s ever wanted, and all he’s ever been too scared to ask for. He doesn’t need to ask you though, because you understand. You know what he wants. It’s what you want. Just a taste, just enough for you to savour him, let him melt on your tongue and break apart between your fingers. It doesn’t matter that the door handle is digging into the base of your spine, or that the lights are too dim, or that the window is open. All that matters is playing along. Playing this game and taking it further than he ever meant for it to go. When you get deeper, further into his thoughts than you’ve dared to go before, you see that he knows that he won’t be able to stop, and yet he’s still going. Still pushing closer and closer to that precipice, and all _you_ need to do is push him right over the edge. It’s easy, but this is you after all. It’s almost mechanical, and you’d call it such if it wasn’t so enjoyable. Buttons dragged through holes, back pressed against the sheets, your fingers too slow on a zip. It’s the methodical part of your game, and with every deal, you know you are playing your cards right. You know by the way he twists, spine curling and hips shaking. He’s a mess, but he tastes so good. So fresh. So different to all the things you’ve had before. For everything about him is still so innocent, so sweet and so naïve. He does what you say because he doesn’t know what else to do, lets you use him because he had no use for himself. The effort is worth it though. Worth it all, just to hear your name stuck on his lips, to hear his vocal cords become a strained record, scratched and repeating the same thing over and over. It’s as pathetic as it is beautiful. And you know, when his head is buried in the pillow and your hand is damp on his neck that all your watching and waiting and waiting and watching, was worth it because he is just perfect, and now that you’ve got him in your jaws, you’re never letting go. 

Because this is going to be so much fun. 

In the morning he regrets it. He regrets everything. You can see it in his eyes, the horror and the realisation that he gave himself so freely, so willingly, to you. He’ll never be able to admit the shame of having done that, not to anyone, because he is the sole reason for his own undoing. His need ruined him. You laugh. You can’t help it. He gave himself away so cheaply and now he has the audacity to have regrets. You laugh and press his mouth to yours. When he doesn’t pull away you know you’ve had your first victory, captured your first flag, won the first of what you hope will be many games. Lying there between his thighs, with the white dawn turned black on his face, you know you’ve snapped something inside him. Broken him open and now everything he’s ever kept a secret is spilling out, one great stream of secrets seeping up through his skin. And he’s better than you could ever have imagined. So, you give him some liberties, you don’t stop him when you feel his hand in your hand, blunt nails against your scalp, a tightness in his fingers that says he’s yours to do what you will with. You want to do so much. Cut him and bruise him and break him, and then fix him. You want to be everything to him; doctor and undertaker; fireman and arsonist; devil and angel. You want to drive him to edge over and over and over again, only at the very last second, to pull him back breathless and aching just for you. With your hands on his thighs you can feel how every sinew in him is pulled so taut, and you think it would only take a single touch to have him crumbling around you. But you’re not that nice. You want to keep him here in this perfect rapture until he’s sobbing, because he will. You know he will. For all your games though, you still want to kill him, now more than ever. It would be so easy, just a nick that turns into a slice, that you stretch and spread until he’s really crying. But it’s not time yet. You want to use him up first, burn him out with your sheer personality, and when he can’t take it anymore, when he’s boring and broken, and just like everyone else. Then you’ll take what you deserve, and you’ll break his heart, and you’ll kill him ever so slowly. But for now, you’ll wait, and you’ll continue your games. 

Because this is going to be so much fun.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this one wasn't too bad, I think it goes back a lot more to the stream of consciousness/internal monologue that this series was originally built on, whether that's a good thing I have no idea. Nevertheless, I may add more to this one at some point.


End file.
